2018
TL4458 : St John's College: First Court, Hall and Chapel
taken 5 years ago, near to Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England
St John's College: First Court, Hall and Chapel
The north side of the court was demolished to make way for George Gilbert Scott's Chapel (1863-9). He based its tower on the one at Pershore Abbey, its nave and apse on those of Ste Chapelle, neither entirely suitable models for Cambridge. Nikolaus Pevsner wrote "The apse faces St John's Street, and it is chiefly this apsidal form which will not join up with the rectangular shapes of the other buildings and the court that makes the chapel appear so alien in the community of collegiate buildings. But Scott and his contemporaries visualised their buildings in isolation. They did not believe in that moderate degree of uniformity or at least accepted relationship without which no precinctual composition is possible. In plan the gap in the E front of the college is especially painful".
There had been rain overnight and there would be torrential rain in the afternoon, but this November morning was cloudless.
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